A Poetry Wrap

I am incredibly busy at the moment and don’t have the hours needed to blog spare, so for a while I am going to follow suit and do what other busy bloggers do – reduce my week into a wrap post. The absolutely amazing writing life happenings will still get a individual post though.

This week I have been working full-time as well as organising sets, writing new poetry and working on several projects. My MOOC course with the University of Iowa finally started! Postponed since March. It has been a worthwhile move so far and has created several pages of poetry. I continue to write poetry for NaPoWriMo – although I realise I have not blogged any extracts of these yet. Caldmore Garden Poets are working on a collaborative piece for the Carnival (and later in the summer, a festival). Unfortunately, I can’t make the Performance as I have my final WWM writers group on the 13th before the summer break. I am also sending David Calcutt workshop poetry to be published on his Natural Histories website.

This week two opportunities suddenly arose and I  submitted a commission proposal for a summer festival and made a bid/application for another event.

I am looking to Wenlock Poetry Festival this weekend. Before that I am reading at a Book event for Restless Bones Poetry Anthology in Birmingham tonight, attending a meeting with Writing West Midlands, hoping to catch ‘Men In General’ tomorrow night on their Worcester leg of the tour, back to Birmingham Friday night for Ddotti Bluebell and Jasmine Gardosi’s Word Up event where Sarah Dixon (Quiet Compere) is headlining alongside Bobby Parker and Jackie Smallbridge (Scrubber Jack). On Sunday I am tempted to get over to Cheltenham Poetry Festival to see Sarah James & Angela Topping and also Math Jones. I am not sure I will have enough energy for that though – especially as I have full time work at the beginning of next week in an incredibly challenging environment.

Motherʼs Milk – Teika Bellamy, Sarah James, Angela Topping
11am-12 midday, Playhouse Theatre Lounge, £6/4
Two prize-winning poets – Sarah James and Angela Topping- have joined forces in the first of a new
series of poetry duets being published by Mother’s Milk Books. Sarah and Angela will be joined by
Dr Teika Bellamyof Mother’s Milk for a Q&A session, where the focus of the discussion will be how,
as mothers, we can best meet the demands of family life whilst still pursuing our own creative projects.

Math Jones – The Other Side of Sleep Reading at Cheltenham Poetry Festival

Saturday at 2:30pm Arachne Press Event

Oxfam Bookshop 31 Cambray Place GL50 1JP

I would highly recommend this events if you can get to the Cheltenham Poetry Festival. There is a wealth of great events in the festival programme this year. It is just a shame it clashes with Wenlock Poetry Festival too.

Next week I am going to the  to see Rachel Kelly, Susanna Howard and Jill Fraser. I am going with mum, who switched me onto Rachel Kelly’s book to begin with.

Wednesday I am performing at an Open Mic, Thursday sees some writing deadlines. I will also be completed Napowrimo, writing assignments for my MOOC and preparing my  next Headline set and planning for the next WWM group which I have the delight of leading for the 2nd time this year.

AND BREATHE …

Book Launch – The Magnetic Diaries – By Sarah James

I was delighted in February when Sarah James asked if I would read at the book launch of her 3rd collection, The Magnetic Diaries, published by KFS Knife Fork and Spoons Press.

I read alongside Maggie Doyle, Ruth Stacey, Jenny Hope, her daughter Lissy Hope and Fergus McGonigal (Worcester Poet Laureate), it was also a DAN (Arts Network) evening out. An enjoyable time was had by all at Park’s Café, Droitwich.

It was interesting to see how a collective of poets interpreted the theme ‘timely poetry’ too.

I arrived after being in the city with WWM writers group and it was a great day in my poetry skin. I met most of the local poets at a Book Launch for ‘Be[yond]’ in September 2013 and have not looked back since, this launch felt like a full circle of some kind.

It was good to hear Sarah talk about the background of the book and read selected poems from the collection. I loved the way she chose to do this. Quotations written on  paper were selected by the audience (like a raffle) and then found in the book and read. It was a creative way and brave way to perform.

Here are some photographs of the evening.

 Fergus McGonigal

 Maggie Doyle

 Jenny Hope

  Nina Lewis

and Sarah James

I realise this is not a very detailed review of the event, I have added related links – I urge you to check them out, local newspaper articles and Sarah’s own blog reveal more about the background of this new collection.

Buy your copy of The Magnetic Diaries here:

http://www.knivesforksandspoonspress.co.uk/magneticdiaries.html

Sarah James – The Poet

Sarah James is extremely busy at the moment, she has a collaborative collection published with Angela Topping, ‘Hearth’ Published by Mother’s Milk Books. You can catch them at the Cheltenham Festival this weekend or SpeakEasy next month, 12th May where they are headlining.

‘Next on my event list now is not The Magnetic Diaries but the launch of Hearth, a collaborative pamphlet with Angela Topping, at Cheltenham Poetry Festival later this month.’ © Sarah James 2015

Sunday, April 26 – Hearth, the collaborative pamphlet between Sarah James and Angela Topping, will be launched at Cheltenham Poetry Festival in a Mother’s Milk Books reading and panel Q and A on collaboration on Sunday, April 26, from 11am-12pm in the Playhouse Theatre Lounge.

Tickets are £6/4. Bookings through Cheltenham Town Hall in person, online at www.cheltenhamtownhall.org.uk or call 0844 576 2210 from mid-March.
Festival brochure (page 4) and Cheltenham Poetry Festival website.

RELATED LINKS;

http://www.sarah-james.co.uk/

Sarah’s review of the launch http://www.sarah-james.co.uk/?p=5972

http://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/regional/12899918.Droitwich_author_brings_modern_day_Madame_Bovary_to_life/

 http://www.sarah-james.co.uk/?p=5992

A Return to Worcester – SpeakEasy

It is incredible how time works in the poetry world;

there is never enough time to work on drafts, edits and important major focus projects,

there is always time to talk to other poets (just not at events)

months speed up and pass by in a matter of what feels like weeks

short time elapsing between monthly events (usually 4 weeks 😉 ) and yet it feels like a homecoming from a long trip when you manage to get to the next event.

 

That’s how I felt last Thursday (9th). I missed March’s SpeakEasy due to overwork in the real world and a need for sleep, also my car wasn’t well and I was trying to use it as little as possible. I was there at the February event and performed back in January, but it felt like 12 months had passed since the last time.

I was booked in for a 6 minute slot, but more than that I enjoyed the reunion, seeing old friends return and poets I had not seen in a year.

Amy Rainbow headlined and treated us to a whole new set a mixture of the familiar and personal.

The whole night was in remembrance of Tana Durham, one of the WLF team. I didn’t know her that well but she was a lovely lady with a lot of friends, including all the WLF team. Poems in her honour was very moving.

I left feeling I was walking on air.

Photos to follow

 

Corinium Museum Poetry Competition – Results

A few months ago 4 Stanza poets (and many more online) took a trip to Corinium Museum, which could have stayed in the tearooms with cake, were it not for a side door straight into the Museum!

It was a great day out – Poets Day Trips (a tour idea for the future), we thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company, the company and freedom of our notebooks and the wonders of this museum in Cirencester.

Sometime later we all submitted poems based on the artefacts for a competition that Hilda Sheehan was judging.

I am delighted to announce that 50% of our day trip team won! Kathy Gee was Highly Commended as well as Short Listed for her 2^nd poem, Claire Walker and Sarah Leavesley (our stanza leader) were also Short Listed. Maggie Doyle performed her poem at a recent Book Launch and I am still playing with the word ‘triskle’ on my tongue.

There poems will be on display in the museum, congratulations to you all!

Winners of the three age categories

Adults: Orion and Lepus by Emma Halliday

12-15 year olds: Horae by Annabelle Fuller

Under 12s: The Poppy by Sophie Martin

 

RELATED LINKS:

http://coriniummuseum.org/2015/04/02/corinium-poetry-competition-winners/

Laptop Gate, Missing Posts and Spoken Word at The Ort

More than halfway through April and not a blogpost in sight? I DID write one and the new version of WP ate it without keeping a draft, it took 40 mins and was about a week ago… so now I am typing in a document first.

I have lots of exciting news and reviews to share of poetry performances, competitions, book launches, festivals and the like.

Let’s tackle this chronologically.

On April 1^st our laptop broke – NO APRIL FOOL! It was working one minute and wouldn’t kick in the next. The worst mistake I made was not backing up any of my recent work, including a project I am editing! Mr G also needed access to the internet for important work.

We had no choice but to go and buy a new one – we hope to still get someone to look at saving things off the hard drive at some point in the future, but waiting days for repair on a 5 year old machine wasn’t going to work.

We didn’t want touch screen (although I fell in love with Mac Air – please gift Gods!) or anything fancy, I was surprised that the prices haven’t really dropped at all but then I realised we get 75% more memory and huge storage space etc. We also desperately needed a printer (last December) we finally bought one with a scanner and then had to drive to a different store to get the laptop – as they had none left! 60 miles later we were home with new tech!

EXCITING!

Then my car practically needed a refit of everything and I had to spend equivalent to a holiday on that… so I wasn’t really in a jolly posting mood and we had AMAZING sunshine over my Easter break so most of it was spent in the garden with good books!

April 3^rd

I spent a wonderful evening in Balsall Heath at Spoken Word at the Ort with Debbie Aldous, always a range of performers, comedians, musicians, storytellers, poets, short stories, magic and things that fall somewhere between.

I went early to meet with a friend I haven’t seen since before Christmas. Also welcomed back some friends who have been off the scene for a while so that good too.

AND I seem to have started a craze of Poet’s celebrating anniversaries with ‘One Year a Poet’.